The grisly murder of five
Dalits in a Haryana village arising reportedly from police action and
mob violence needs to condemned in the strongest terms. Added to it
is the statement of the VHP leader, Giriraj Kishore, to suggest the
play of sentiments behind the lynching  the important place accorded
to the cow in the shastras  which is reflective of a mindset that
has dangerous implications.

It remains to be established
whether the killers were in any sense associated with the VHP or any
other outfit of the Sangh Parivar. But then, the prompt reaction by
the VHP chief and the statement that his men have been sent to Jhajhar
to ascertain whether a cow was skinned alive is clearly an attempt to
prepare a brief for those who stand guilty of murder. The VHP leader's
observation, as has been reported, that the life of a cow is very important,
according to the shastras, is only a premise to suggest that the lives
of the five Dalits who were killed were not as important. There cannot
be a place for men with such ideas in a modern society and the civil
administration at this stage cannot gloss over such remarks as merely
another instance of raving and ranting by someone constituting the lunatic
fringe of society. The danger in seeking to establish such abhorrent
notions as the "national sentiment" is all too apparent.

Mr. Kishore's observations
in the wake of the brutal display of mob violence, ostensibly caused
by hearsay that a group of Dalit villagers were skinning a live cow,
falls in the same genre as the activities carried out by the various
Sangh Parivar outfits across Gujarat, the tribal districts of Madhya
Pradesh and at Manoharpur in Orissa. The killings and other forms of
violence in all these places were carried out by mobs consisting of
men whose "passions" were whipped up by the sectarian campaign
carried out by the fundamentalist outfits. It is in this context that
the incident in Jhajhar village too needs to be seen.

In this sense, it is difficult
to reduce the killing of five Dalits to merely a law and order problem.
All this, however, does not mean that the law enforcing agencies stand
absolved of their failures. The fact that the incident is reported to
have taken place right in front of a police station and that some from
the civil administration too were present when the murderous mob went
about lynching the hapless victims clearly shows that the personnel
from the law enforcing agencies too were accomplices in the crime. Add
to this the fact that the police had registered cases against the victims
under the Cow Slaughter (Prevention) Act. This certainly is no way to
instil a sense of confidence  that justice will be done 
among the Dalits. The reaction of the police at all stages of the incident
betrays a gross insensitivity to basic human values.

Be that as it may, the horrific
incident in Jhajhar is not just an isolated case involving five young
men and their right to life. Instead, the barbarism witnessed in this
sleepy village on Tuesday night could be enacted in several other parts
of the country given the prejudices inherent in the thought process
of some sections, even now, against any form of egalitarianism and assertion
of this right by the oppressed. The odious practice of untouchability,
and the sanction accorded to it by religious tradition and sustained
by the economic inequity that prevails are indeed the forces behind
such incidents.

This is where the explanation
by the VHP assumes a lot of importance. Hence, the need to deal with
the Jhajhar incident as not merely an instance involving an unruly mob
taking the law into its hands but as one having implications for the
future of the democratic and pluralist set-up. This makes it imperative
for the civil administration in Jhajhar and the political dispensation
in Haryana to make sure that those behind the grisly act of murder do
not escape punishment. A show of determination can have a demonstrative
effect on all those who seek to impose their own abhorrent views on
the hapless.